Friday, March 29, 2024

Feed freak

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Northland herd manager Brendon Davison demonstrated an award-winning approach to feed and livestock management on his way to a sharemilking position within the next two years.
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“His dedication to upskilling through research, discussion with industry professionals, and reading were impressive,” the judges commented.

“His strengths in this area were evident – he was so obsessed with feeding he made the judges eat fodder beet.”

That helped him win the Fonterra Farm Source Feed Management and the De Laval Livestock Management merit awards before being crowned Northland Dairy Manager of the Year.

Brendon has sole responsibility for one of two 225-cow herds on Graeme and Shirley Hewlett’s farm (144ha effective plus 100ha runoff) at Mata, south of Whangarei.

He is solo father to a daughter and a son while working full-time, and is grateful for support from the Hewletts.

He has been in the industry for 15 years, with equal time on just two farms.

The farm has a high stocking rate (3.1) by Northland standards and is system 5 with extended lactation.

The achievement so far has been 830kg milksolids (MS)/cow from a 490-day lactation and the target is 1000kg MS from 500 days when a shorter dry period is used.

The farm grows between 15ha and 30ha of chicory annually, about 100 tonnes of grass silage, 5ha for fodder beet and 700 to 800t of maize grown on the runoff.

“The challenge is keeping a focus on pasture to ensure quality and quantity is not compromised by the demands of the cropping programme,” Brendon says.

He uses MINDA Land and Feed to calculate pasture allocation before other feed is introduced, then additional feed is allocated based on lactation stage, protein in the diet and cost of feed. He needs to ensure feed calculations and planning are done three days in advance.

A big challenge will be milking both herds through winter this year for the first time because of the extended lactations.

One herd is milked from spring calving right through the following spring and mated to calve in autumn. The other herd calves in autumn and milks through two winters to calve in the second spring.

Brendon did a lot of research on the system and based his Primary ITO Power Play presentation on it.

Another major challenge this year is somatic cell count, which will be addressed with culling.

Dry-cow teat sealing wasn’t done because of the El Nino dry prediction but regular rain and good grass growth raised the SCC and facial eczema risk.

Brendon works with fellow employees Logan and Michelle Hewlett to cultivate and sow all crops and grass plus 40ha undersowing.

Logan has been mentoring Brendon, especially for the past three years as a solo father.

Brendon told the Northland Dairy Industry Awards field day he didn’t have a good work-life balance, because of fatherly duties.

But he ranks dairy education highly, after leaving school at 15, and has completed six agricultural training courses, at three levels, to qualify for a National Diploma in Agribusiness Management.

Among his goals is a desire for university study in agricultural science and a rural professional’s job one day.

By pooling his capital with his brother, also employed in the dairy industry, they want to get a 50:50 sharemilking job for the 2018-19 season.

Brendon also has an ambition to establish a pedigree Ayrshire herd.

“Success is doing what you love to do and getting paid for doing it,” he said.

He hadn’t entered the Dairy Industry Awards before because his herd manager position didn’t fit the criteria. The change in rules this year enabled him to enter, for success first time up.

Runner-up was Jared Dean of Whangarei Heads and third was Balkaran Singh Sran of Hikurangi.

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